The Fall and Rise of Football Hooliganism
| Author | Peter MacKay |
| Published date | 01 July 1986 |
| Date | 01 July 1986 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X8605900302 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
PETER
MACKAY,
B.A., M.Phii.
Bedfordshire Police.
THE FALL
AND
RISE OF
FOOTBALL
HOOLIGANISM
Since the 1960's the image of the "football hooligan" has become an
established figure within the game - variously described as
animals, thugs, savages, and louts, who have little interest in either
the outcome
of
the match, or the fortunes of the team they
supposedly follow. Among the attributes found in these fans are
excessive drinking, gratuitous violence, wanton destruction, with
the resulting decline
and
eventual downfall of all but a few of the
top football clubs.
It
is widely accepted in the media and popular
press
that
such behaviour is a new phenomenon and as such
presents abreakdown in the moral
and
social fabric of the society
within which we live.' However, how many of these facts are
correct?
It
is the purpose of this paper to explore the history of such
crowd misbehaviour within football; to take account of some of the
sociological studies dealing with this problem;
and
to observe if the
football hooligan is such a huge problem as he is often portrayed.
As a process of evaluation to the "problems" which face
contemporary football, it is necessary
that
the history of the game is
briefly investigated. Football has been a very common and
widespread recreation, and as Reisman (1954) notes, football in its
earliest form was played in the 10th and 11th centuries as a contest
in kicking a ball between towns. Later, in the 17th century, Samuel
Pepys observed
that
the streets of London were "full of fotballs".
(Malcolmson, 1979).
Compared
to the modern game, most matches
were informal
and
spontaneous affairs, often taking place to the
annoyance of those living nearby. Dunning (1967), in his analysis of
the development
of
soccer, argued that in the early stages it was
"loosely organized, often rough,
and
played according to unwritten
customary rules".
Gradually, football matches became more formal and Taylor
(1971) notes
that
between 1845-62 English Public Schools
committed its football rules to paper. The game became "civilized"
and
it is claimed
that
this was reflected by the influence of Thomas
Arnold, Headmaster at Rugby, who viewed team games "as en
instrument for character training't.?
The
pupils left the various
public schools taking positions as parsons
and
school teachers,
and
as Taylor argues:
"(they) were concerned to provide for the dangerous classes some
ordered alternative to the grinding misery
and
potentially
divisive conditions of capitalist industrialization".
(Taylor, 1971, p.
137).3
tv«
Julv
1986
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